Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys said there should be an “update” on guaranteeing women equal rights as the country celebrates its 250th anniversary.
Keys posted the video to promote People’s Bill of Rights 250, a national campaign inviting people to collaborate in creating laws. The campaign welcomes legislative ideas in all areas, but women’s issues are the causes Keys chose to highlight in her video.
“Did you know it’s been 100 years since the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced? And now, still, women do not have an explicit guarantee to equal rights under the U.S. Constitution,” Keys said in an Instagram video posted on July 4.
The ERA was first proposed in 1923 and was a constitutional amendment that prohibited discrimination “on account of sex.” The amendment would’ve marked the first time sex-based equality was explicitly outlined in the Constitution.
But the ERA was never added to the Constitution.
As Article 5 of the Constitution outlines, amending the Constitution requires that at least two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate pass a resolution with the text of the proposed amendment. Following congressional passage, at least three-fourths of the states must ratify the amendment.
The ERA was passed in 1973 with bipartisan support, but failed to get 38 states to ratify it within the seven-year time limit as outlined in the preamble of the congressional-passed legislation. In 1982, the ERA fell three states short of ratification.
In 2020, the ERA finally reached the 38-state threshold of ratification for adoption, but since it happened after the time limit, it was not added to the Constitution.
Keys said she “couldn’t believe” it had been over 100 years since the ERA had been proposed.
“Women are not asking for special rights, just equal rights,” Keys said. “Let’s turn outrage into authorship. If it’s the 250th anniversary of the celebration of the country, isn’t it time to update some things? What rights or guarantees do you feel all women should have in America?”
“It’s a good question,” she added.
Keys said the video wasn’t meant to “speak for” people but to engage them and question the current structures.
“I just want to pass you the mic, so have your say at peoplesbillofrights.org,” she said. “Not red, not blue, just you.”
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The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that in the “event of legislative default,” the ERA would provide courts with an “unassailable basis for applying the bedrock principle: All men and women are guaranteed by the Constitution equal justice under law,” according to a law review she wrote in 1979.
In the absence of the ERA, the Supreme Court has used the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to prohibit sex-based discrimination. The 1971 Reed v. Reed ruling first established this interpretation of the 14th Amendment in securing protection against gender discrimination.